The Comelec has entangled itself in a legal mess. Last June 23 all its seven commissioners in en banc proclaimed Kasangga to have won a seat in the congressional party-list voting. As such, they authorized the party’s qualified nominee Teodorico T. Haresco to sit as representative for a three-year term. So Haresco, with some other reps, took his oath of office on June 30 before P-Noy.
Comes the knotty part. Last week three of the commissioners, sitting as one of two divisions, said that Haresco is not marginalized as the small and medium entrepreneurs he represents. This is because he has a “long list of businesses.” But of course Haresco has several ventures. That’s because he grew his initial capital many times over in the last three decades. In the process he formed Kasangga to microfinance dozens of cooperatives — of market vendors, farmers, tricycle drivers, masseurs, and handicraftsmen.
Just because Haresco has more money in his pocket doesn’t mean he cannot represent the little folk he has led for years. If that were the rule, then labor sector reps in Congress cannot sit for workingmen since they are not laborers but full-time union administrators.
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P-Noy’s 88-percent trust rating is more than double his 42-percent share of last June’s presidential vote. Note that the voter turnout then was only 76 percent. The meaning is clear. Filipinos who voted for P-Noy or his rivals, even those who did not vote at all, are relying on him to lift them from the mire where Gloria Arroyo left them. By contrast, Arroyo’s last surveys showed 69-percent disapproval, and 79 percent bent on junking her presidential candidate. Sentiment was widespread that her reign was the most corrupt and abusive. P-Noy is viewed as an anti-thesis to Arroyo. His campaign line, “if there are no corrupt, there would be no poor,” captured the electorate’s imagination.
Expectation is high for P-Noy to form an honest, caring admin. The task is twofold. Half of it is to recover unexplained wealth of the Arroyos and cronies. Mechanics are being worked out for a Truth Commission. The other half is to establish procedures for clean public spending. Instantly hailed was the retention of the congressional pork barrel, but this time to be transparent by publishing in newspapers the project details. If for roads, for instance, even the quantity of cement and re-bars would be listed, for verification by auditors, competitors and graft busters.
For these to succeed, perhaps rewards can be offered; say, 20 percent of the recouped stolen wealth or discovered graft. Rewards have proven crucial in eliciting solid information to arrest criminals and recover public funds. It worked to pinpoint Abu Sayyaf terrorists and the Maguindanao massacrers, and uncover countless smugglers and tax cheats. It can be made to work in a bureaucracy robbed blind by the past regime. Once set in place, rewards can also ferret out new grafters. It can entice neighbors and friends to turn in grafters and tax cheats who love to display the fruits of their crime in the form of jewelry, Ferraris, and mansions.
A twin measure would be to shame grafters by, say, public ostracism. Posting on the Net their photos, with kith and kin, in all their opulence, will communicate mass disapproval. Families would cringe; friends would stay away. Shame campaigns can be boundless. The exposed can be denied entry in restaurants and cinemas, or purchases of furniture and airline tickets, or just plain enjoy themselves. Social isolation is the best deterrent and worst punishment for grafters. It blunts the appetite for plunder, which is to get materially ahead of everyone, and leaves the plunderer unable to benefit from his wealth.
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Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez’s claim is right. Closeness to her appointer Gloria Arroyo — she was Mike Arroyo’s law schoolmate — is no ground for impeaching her. But then, that’s not the reason being cited by her critics to want her out. It’s her alleged betrayal of public trust in routinely exonerating Gloria and Mike Arroyo in major scandals.
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Reader John Lagac reminds us that tire blowouts, sometimes fatal, can be due to the sale of old stocks. Tire makers have a cryptic way of marking a unit’s date of manufacture. At the end of seemingly senseless etchings of letters and numbers, you’d see a code like “414”; it means your tire was made on the 41st week of 1994. “4202” means it came out of the production line in the 42nd week of 2002; “231,” on the 23rd week of 2001. But who would have guessed? And when your new car is delivered to you, you’d have to crawl under it with a flashlight to read the code on the inner side.
The US bans the sale of “brand-new” tires more than four years old. But nobody knows it. More so in Third World RP. Learn more about it in this TV news clip http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4826897.
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“To be rich at your neighbor’s cost is to be poor — at your cost.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ
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E-mail: jariusbondoc@workmail.com